We’ve been warning for a couple years that American politicians need to be enrolled, en masse, in an Ethanolics Anonymous 12-step program, because massive government support for the corn- and plant-based gasoline alternative would raise food prices and have uncertain environmental benefits. But we know a few readers won’t believe anything unless they read it in the editorial pages of the left-leaning New York Times, so we refer them to Wednesday’s edition, in which the gray lady finally awakens to ethanol’s adverse impacts
Mark Udall has shown himself to be "nimble" on this issue-"enthusiastic" to farmers, "skeptical" to energy executives, and calling it "a bridge" when CSU scientists criticize it-and now we know why. The Grey Lady isn't saying nice things about corn ethanol any more.
So far, Americans haven’t really caught on to what is happening to the price of products such as soybean or corn-based foodstuffs. But that may change if and when this rush to all fuels allegedly more environmentally friendly affects the price of beer...
Where will this all stop? Actually, it has barely even begun; most ethanol and bio-fuel production is merely in the planning stages, or under construction (as in the case of refineries to produce this stuff), and years from coming on-stream. At what point might it dawn on people that the “cure” for reducing our dependence on foreign oil is worse than the original disease?
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